The Japanese needed a tank faster than the Type 89 medium for use with motorized units and decided on designing a new seven ton tank in 1933. The production ran from 1936 to 1943, with some 1,164 built.
The infantry was not impressed with the armament or protection initially, but grew to like the tank’s reliability and the tank ran into little trouble in China in 1937. They were issued on the basis of one ten-tank company per tank regiment. In the end, the Ha-Go fought just about everywhere the Japanese did. However, as the tank was designed to deal with the inadequately equipped Chinese, it performed poorly against anyone else who had even moderate anti-tank defenses. By the end of the war, some were used as rather ineffective improvised pillboxes. An unknown number were retained by China after 1945 and a few may have been used in the Korean War.
The Ha-Go has a crew of three. The driver and bow gunner sit in the body. The overworked commander, who also fires and loads the main gun and rear MG is in the turret. It uses 3.7 gallons per hour at routine usage. A full load of fuel and ammo costs $409.
Subassemblies: Small Tank chassis +3, full rotation Large
Weapon turret [Body:T] +2, tracks +2.
Powertrain: 82-kW diesel engine w/82-kW tracked drive
train and 43 gallons fuel in standard fuel tank [body]; 4,000-kWs batteries.
Occupancy: 2 CS Body, 1 CS Tur Cargo:
1.8 Body, 2.3 Turret.
| Armor | F | RL | B | T | U |
| Body | 4/45 | 4/45 | 4/35 | 4/35 | 4/35 |
| Tracks | 4/18 | 4/18 | 4/18 | 4/18 | 4/18 |
| Turret | 4/45 | 4/45 | 4/45 | 4/35 | 0/0 |
Weaponry
37mm Medium TG/37mm Type 94 [Tur:F] (119).
Ground LMG/Type 97 [Tur:B] (940).
Ground LMG/Type 97 [Body:F] (2,000).
Statistics
| Size: 14’¥7’¥8’ | Payload: 0.67 tons | Lwt: 7.5 tons |
| Volume: 58 | Maint.: 61 hours | Price: $10,500 |
HT: 12
HP: 500 [Body], 120 [Turret], 200 [Each Track]
| gSpeed: 33 | gAccel: 3 | gDecel: 20 | gMR: 0.25 | gSR: 5 | GP: Very Low (4/5) |
Design Notes
The design purchased 135 rounds of tank gun ammo, 3,000 rounds of LMG
ammo and 42 gallons of fuel tanks. The historical values were used. Historical
speed was 28 mph. The cost, weight and HPs of the chassis were divided
by two to reduce weight.
The 37mm Type 94 had a noticeably lower muzzle velocity than other 37mm tank guns. Reduce AP damage to 6dx4(2) and ranges to 1/2Dam 900 and Max 3,300.
Variants
The Type 3 Ke-Ri was an attempt to up-gun the tank with a short 57mm
gun, which proved to be too large for satisfactory use in the turret.
The Type 4 Ke-Nu put the turret of the Type 97 Shinhoto Chi-Ha, with the 47mm Type 1 (50mm Medium TG), on the Type 95 chassis, but very few were built.
The Type 2 Ka-Mi amphibious tank was based on the Type 95.